Oil bears are cashing out. Hedge funds slashed short positions in West Texas Intermediate by 13 per cent in the week ended Sept. 1 as the largest three-day rally in 25 years sent crude up by almost $10 a barrel before it dropped again. It was the biggest liquidation of bearish bets since May. The […]

The amount of sublease space available in the Calgary downtown office market rose significantly in the second quarter, for the third consecutive quarter, and is now at a record level, says a new report by commercial real estate firm Colliers International. “For the first time since Q4 2009 there is more sublease space available than […]

“With everything that’s happened these past few weeks, we appreciate our country even more.” Tuesday morning, Richard Kruger offers this simple explanation for bringing his kids to Calgary’s Military Museums for its 22nd annual Remembrance Day ceremony.

Adventurers Leon McCarron and Alastair Humphreys wanted to explore the beautiful Banff scenery when they arrived in Alberta earlier this month. While typical tourists might rent a car or make the trip by bus, McCarron and Humphreys opted for their preferred mode of transportation — walking.

Anya Sass and Habib Alibrahim were at wits end late last month. The Calgary woman and her Syrian husband had all but given up on Canadian immigration officials approving his permanent residence application; a process they were told would take 24 months.

An oil and gas company backed by financier Richard Grafton of Calgary is spending $500 million to buy into a joint venture with Tourmaline Oil Corp. to develop its Peace River High oil play in return for a 25 per cent stake. Tourmaline announced the deal with Canadian Non-Operated Resources LP, created by Grafton Asset Management Inc. and other equity funds, in its third-quarter financial results news release late Wednesday. A Tourmaline spokesman was not immediately available for comment and a spokeswoman for Grafton declined to comment.

There is a vibrancy to the way Yotam Ottolenghi cooks. It’s in the intense technicolour of his dishes ­— deep purple beets, flaming orange squash, blushing pink rhubarb ­— but also in the striking combination of ingredients and flavours.

As oil prices plummeted to their lowest level in three years, Alberta Energy Minister Frank Oberle said Tuesday he doesn’t expect major provincial budget cuts this year or a sharp slowdown in the energy sector. West Texas Intermediate crude slid two per cent to $77.19 US a barrel — the lowest closing price since October 2011 — on Tuesday, a day after energy heavyweight Saudi Arabia cut the price of oil sold into the United States.

For the past four months, Rod O’Brien has been treading water. “It’s like we were hit by a tsunami,” he says. “You crawl back on to the beach and look around — and there’s devastation everywhere. I can’t believe I have to stand up and start cleaning up.”

Calgary MP Rob Anders believes military officers and police should carry guns and ammunition when they’re off duty. “If we trust them enough to arm them during war and conflict, we should trust the military and the police to have their guns, their sidearms, and to have ammunition when they’re off duty too,” he said on Saturday.

Calgary Muslims honoured on Friday the two Canadian soldiers killed this week in separate terrorist attacks and condemned the men accused in their deaths. “Your actions are not only abhorrent, cowardly, despicable and inhuman, but you are unequivocally outside the teachings of Islam,” said David Liepert, founder of the Calgary Islamic Chamber Institute.

“It’s as per normal here — no barricades, no armed escorts,” says Capt. Steven Zivkow as he stands Thursday morning at the entrance to Calgary’s Mewata Armoury. “We don’t hide in buildings because someone’s causing problems.” What’s not per normal on this sunny morning is the growing collection of flower bouquets on the ground before us, and, a stone’s throw away, the Canadian flag that Zivkow just lowered to fly at half-mast.

The deadly outrage on Parliament Hill will change this country, not just psychologically but in other profound ways. It’s now a bit harder to be Canadian — harder to trust, harder to believe in blanket presumption of innocence, harder to enjoy public ceremonies like Remembrance Day.

After two soldiers were killed in stunning attacks within days of each other in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., reservists in Calgary made some security changes at a downtown armoury, but vowed their work would go on. “These are our family, so we want to make sure that they’re protected,” said Capt. Steven Zivkow, of the Calgary Highlanders, a land reserve infantry unit, though he would not disclose exactly what precautions have been taken.

Years before most westerners had heard of the Taliban, they were already on Sally Armstrong’s radar — and she was on theirs. “I was their worst nightmare,” she says with a wry laugh of the extremists who at one point held her captive for 24 hours, later adding her name to a list of high-profile enemies of their cause. Over the past quarter of a century, the Canadian journalist and author has gone where few others have dared to tread, into some of the most dangerous places on the planet where oppression and human rights abuses run rampant. Her experiences and observations on its effects on women and girls have filled bestselling books and won her numerous awards, while her opinion pieces have run in such prominent publications as The New York Times.

It started with street protests that disrupted traffic and frayed the community’s nerves. Not long after, letters began showing up in the mailboxes of Catholic households in their pleasant town just outside of Damascus, calling the Pope “your biggest monkey” and telling them to “leave this clean land within three days or our swords will cut off your rotten heads.” The breaking point for Ralda Daher, though, came when a mortar shell hit a schoolhouse next to the one her two children attended. The toll from that attack was 13 dead, 70 injured.

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